Sam Franks

Advanced Composition

Research Paper

Professor Brown

April 24, 2016

Off The Field: A Struggle for Justice

“And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would like to proudly announce that the first overall draft pick for the 2015 NFL season will go to…Jameis Winston!” the announcer booms from ESPN’s live NFL draft coverage broadcast, Draftcast (ESPN). Winston, a former Florida State University starting football quarterback and winner of the 2013 Heisman Trophy, signed a four-year, $30.3 million dollar contract with the Buccaneers, despite the fact he had been involved in a serious rape allegation the year before at FSU (Clery Center). The 2015 documentary, The Hunting Ground, which highlights the accusations against Winston, is described by Marissa Payne, a contributing writer for The Washington Post as “a chilling documentary that takes a close look at the rampant problem of sexual assaults on college campuses, and the institutions willingness to cover it up” (Payne 1). In 2015 after the release of the film, hundreds of FSU students rallied together in the student section at a home football game and yelled “FSU protects rapists, protect students instead!” (The Center for Public Integrity)

In The Hunting Ground, University of California Berkley and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill students Sofia Karasek and Annie Clark were featured as their journey of filing a federal Title IX complaint was highlighted. Both Karasek and Clark are sexual assault survivors who were raped by student athletes as freshman on campus and felt that their learning institutions had failed to act in a proper manner. Annie Clark, after her initial rape, was told by the Dean of Students at UC Berkley in 2012, “well you don’t want to press charges, who knows he could be going through a really tough time” (Payne 1). The Obama Administration had already responded to the problem by calling for a reform campaign and a nationwide Department of Justice investigation into the mishandling of sexual assault cases. Kirby Dick’s documentary, along with a federal Title IX complaint brought by Karasek and Clark, sparked national attention from both college students and the White House, and produced the question: what role have survivors of sexual assault played in exposing the institutional cover-ups against females to protect athletes across college campuses in America?

Karasek and Clark’s experiences revealed to the nation the problem of campus sexual assault, violence against women, and the cover-ups that occur by administration at colleges and universities. It also sparked a nationwide-wave of demonstrations and rallies by students at hundreds of schools across America.

While many of these protests are fairly recent, campus cover-ups concerning athletes are not a new problem. Dr. Scot B. Boeringer, who writes scholarly articles on campus rape, reported that there was a woman who in 1974 accused six Notre Dame football players of gang-raping her. She was hospitalized and spent a month in psychiatric care, no football players were ever punished (Boeringer 3). Then there was the 17-year-old St. Mary’s student who in 1976 was raped by three men, two of whom had been alleged in the 1974 case, still no punishment was enacted even after the woman had reported her rape to the Dean of Students (Boeringer 4). In 1991 5-foot-2-inch, 120-pound Jane Redmond, at the time only18, was enrolled at the University of Nebraska for just one week when she met the 6-foot-2-inch, 265-pound [Christian] Peter, a nose tackle on the football team. She says Peter, who could bench-press 450 pounds, lured her to his room and raped her. The next day, she says, Peter pushed his way past dorm security and into her room, where he raped her again, this time with two of his teammates keeping watch (Boeringer, Pg. 5). Redmond reported her rape to her advisor, and Peter’s only punishment was that he was benched for 20 minutes in his next game. At Florida State in 1994, kicker Scott Bentley, who scored the winning goal during The Orange Bowl, admitted to raping a woman and received a “summer suspension” (Boeringer, Pg. 5). In early 1997 at Appalachian State University, a student said that six football players on campus raped her. And more recently in 2005 six football players at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had been charged with taking turns raping a female student after a party. A week later the girl had approached campus administration and reported her rapes, but no charges or consequences were ever brought upon the six football players.

Years later The 2015 documentary It Happened Here by director Lisa F. Jackson brought the issue of athletes and sexual assault again to the attention of the public eye when students gathered and proclaimed that: “Dartmouth has a problem! Dartmouth has a problem!” This phrase was yelled by hundreds of students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 2013. And at Harvard University in 2015, 80 undergrad students shouted outside Massachusetts Hall, “we all deserve to be safe-stop covering up athlete campus rape at Harvard! Which goes to show that even the Ivy League institutions were not immune (Jackson).

            Before we look into how the recent campus protests have developed, the reasoning behind why colleges and universities seem go to such great lengths to protect athletes must first be understood. One of the reasons why college athletes may not be prosecuted is because they are perceived as a substantial way to increase a school’s total revenue. ESPN in 2104 released a “College Athletics Revenues and Expenses” report that showed that in the year 2008 Alabama’s Crimson Tide had total generated sports revenue of over $123 Million dollars. The Missouri Tigers and The Kansas City Jayhawks also brought in large totals of over $92 Million dollars each, while The Arizona Wildcats rounded out the football season at $78 Million (College Revenues and…).

            Even with the large sums revenue colleges and universities are able to generate through ticket sales, merchandizing, student fees, media revenue, away game fees and alumni donations, few schools profit from athletics, as Will Hobson and Steven Rich from The Washington Post declared in their article “Playing in The Red.” For the vast majority of the more than 4,000 colleges and universities in America, athletic departments should lose money (Hobson and Rich 1). Yet for schools in the top five conferences, the Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-12, Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference, “it is a competitive race among some of the biggest universities in this country to compete and achieve at the highest level,” (Hobson and Rich 1).

            A former college athlete, Don McPhearson, who was a college football hall of fame quarterback, believes that “when you have 18-22 year old kids who are celebrities it creates a toxic environment for a lot of bad behavior. When they walk across campus, it’s not like a normal student walking around campus; they have a multi-billion dollar industry wrapped around them. And if you don’t think they’re part of a culture of entitlement, just look at the fanfare around college football” (Dick). With male sports bringing in so much money to a school, and because athletes reflect so publicly on the reputation of a school, both coaches and school officials appear to be more protective of male athletes than of female students.

In 2013, when Karasek and Clark’s Title IX complaint reached the federal level and brought campus sexual assault to the public’s attention, student activists at college campuses and universities started to take a stand and protest the issue of sexual assault against female students and the misconduct of educational institutions in the way that they handle sexual assault cases concerning athletes. At Indiana University in October 2015, students marched around Kirkwood Avenue to protest sexual assault cover-ups concerning athletes. The Indiana Daily Student reported that Lauren Dobb, who a sophomore at IU, says “Sexual assault is a huge problem on campuses, particularly IU because it’s a sports school, athletes are like Gods here” (Schmidt 1). Also in 2015 at Columbia was a rally attended by hundreds of students that protested how their university handles sexual assault. “How many more championship titles does Columbia need before we can support rape survivors?” and “Classism? It happens here! Support survivors! F athletes who rape!” were just a few of the signs carried by students as they arched around the student union (Schmidt 1). All of the recent protests are an effort to support sexual assault victims and to call for institutions to start placing a greater value on female student’s physical and emotional safety, as opposed to athletes and the revenue they bring in.

Looking at the campus sexual assault protests concerning athletes from a more rhetorical standpoint, we can start to see how the protest works to create a persuasive protest. In a 2015 study from the Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force, of 15,000 college females from 27 colleges and universities, it was discovered that 20% of senior female students said that they experienced sexual assault by a member of a sporting team at some point in their four years in college (Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force). Of that 20% of females who were assaulted, 60% did not report because they did not think “anything would be done about it.” And of the other 40% who did report to administration, only 19% saw any consequences carried out by their schools on the athletes who had assaulted them. While this data is alarming, it is unfortunately a typical trend. The recent protest movement of sexual assault concerning athletes and campus cover-ups strives to create an emotional argument, and show just how ethically wrong it is to support revenue and athletics over the female survivors. One of the rhetorical goals of this movement is to show how athlete sexual assault and a school’s willingness to cover it up is an ethical issue that has no justification. In the 2015 documentary It Happened Here, Vanderbilt athlete Sarah O’ Brien says: “my rape was terrible, yes. It was awful. But the way I was treated by administration after I reported was even worse” (Jackson). Carolyn Luby, a student at UConn claims that not receiving help and support was more traumatizing than her actual rape. “I felt unsafe no matter where I went. My assaulter was allowed back on campus, and could do whatever he wanted. Meanwhile I had to change the way I walked to class, I had to continue to live in the same hall I was raped in. I was punished for something that was never my fault” (Jackson). Luby claims that after she filed a Clery Act Compliant against her school, university officials tried to blame her, claiming she was asking for it because she “was weaning a short skirt and had consumed alcohol at a fraternity party” (Jackson). The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act or “Clery Act” (signed in 1990), requires all colleges and universities that participate in federal financial aid programs to keep and disclose information about crime on and near their respective campuses (Clery Center). The United States Department of Education is in charge of monitoring colleges and universities to make sure that they all comply with the procedures of the Clery Act. Failure of an education institution to comply with the act can impose severe civil penalties, which can be up to $35,000 per violation and can suspend institutions from participating in federal student financial aid programs (Clery Center). The law is named after Jeanne Clery, who was a Freshman student at Lehigh University who was raped and murdered in her campus residence hall in 1986. Her murder triggered a backlash against unreported crime on campuses across the country.

Psychology Today cites that blaming the victim is a serious ethical issue that can have devastating consequences for the mental health and recovery of survivors (Muller 1). Psychologist Noam Shpancer mentions “assault survivors who receive support and help right away have an 80% chance of a full recovery. When people believe them and bring those responsible to justice, the chance of being a normal-functioning adult with an almost full recovery is astronomical” (Muller 1). Unfortunately with a good number of sexual assault cases, athletes are believed over the victim, which in turn hinders the recovery of the victim. When victims experience a negative reaction coming forward, they are less likely to seek further assistance, heightening their distress (Muller 1). Victim blame also causes depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress among survivors. There is no justification for treating survivors this way and no student athlete is worth more than a woman’s safety, no matter how much revenue they bring in to a school. Every accredited college and university in the United States has included in their mission statement the promise “to protect all students from harm” (U.S. Department of Justice). Schools today are ethically and morally in the wrong for not living up to the promise of looking out for attendees of their colleges and universities. An important social goal of the protests is to look into if it is ethical for federal funding to be given to these institutions that lie and cover up their real statistical data about campus assault. For example, each year, the Federal Government of The United States spends a certain amount of money on institutions of higher education. In 2013, the federal government spent nearly $76 billion on higher education. The money is usually spent on research or grants, but, if the college or university looking to receive the funding has high case numbers of sexual assault, the funding could be dramatically decreased. The Cleary Act also allows the US Department of Education to suspend schools from receiving federal aid. It is because of this that many schools try to hide their assault data and dissuade victims from coming forward and reporting, so that they can “keep their numbers low” (Dick). Shockingly, in the year 2012, 45% of colleges and universities reported zero campus sexual assaults (CNN).

            Survivors of female sexual assault, such as Karasek and Clark and the women previously talked about, all seek to have a widespread institutional reform so that there can be support for other survivors; and also so that there can be accountability for athletes who assault students. The copious number of demonstrations sweeping the nation like wildfire has attached itself to these women who identify with the athletic assault protests, and the campus and university protests also identify with these goals, and seek institutional change, safety for the individual woman, and accountability for athletes who are violent. 

According to official police records, in the 1974 Notre Dame case, the woman who was raped by six football players prepared a signed statement from two hospital administrators who cared for her bruised and battered body in the Emergency Room after her assault. This statement was brought to the university administration, but nothing was done to investigate her assault claim. A university administrator even called her “a queen of the slums with a mattress tied to her back” after she reported (Boeringer, Pg. 2). In The St. Mary’s rape case, two football players were caught in the act of sexually assaulting a woman by the resident assistant in the school’s dorm. The woman says her resident assistant brought her to a top St. Mary’s official, who informed her one of the men had raped another St. Mary’s student. After that, she says, “I was told to shut up and mind my own business;” both cases were later dismissed by the Universities (Boeringer, Pg.3).

These above situations show the rhetorical context of both pathos and ethos. By framing women and blaming the victims for their own assaults, or doing nothing to assist a student who has been assaulted, it is a representation to women that their bodies, along with their emotions, do not matter. The campus sexual assault protests really try to convey the message that women are valuable and that their feelings are significant, but that college and university administrations do not see female victims as important, since administrations across America all appear to go to great lengths to protect their school’s athletic players, but meanwhile make no measures to protect assault victims. From an ethical standpoint, the meager actions by universities and colleges to assist victims goes to show just how unethical the business of money and sports is, and how it is placed above campus safety for women. Protesters who point the finger at not only the athletic assailants, but also their universities, are shedding light on this rampant issue and vying for real reform and change at their schools. Danielle Dirks, a sociologist professor at Occidental College calls it an “atrocity that women are treated so poorly by the people you pay $62,500 a year to protect you” (Grigoriadis 1). 

Looking into more cases we also find that victim Jane Redmond went to the University of Nebraska police after the rapes occurred and says she received death threats and prank phone calls. “The university knew and they just didn’t care because they were playing good football,” says Redmond. The two football players who were keeping watch the second time she got raped even admitted to police that a sexual assault had occurred. Nothing was done with these statements and Peter was never charged with assaulting Redmond (Boeringer, Pg.3).  FSU kicker Scott Bentley, who confessed to the rape of a young woman in 1994, was able to return at the end of summer, after his “summer suspension” a week before training camp was to start so that he could play the 1995-96 season. He was later acquitted of all charges (Boeringer, Pg.5). At Appalachian State University in 1997, the woman who was raped brought her case to the dean of students where she was then threatened and told to “keep quiet. The football team is having a great season” All players were acquitted and later sued the woman for “slander”(Boeringer, Pg. 5). We can see more examples of pathos by how the campus administrations decided to frame the women as “sluts” and as students who were responsible for what had happened to them. Female sexual assault survivors are not the issue, although the universities really try to make it seem that way by asking women: “what where you wearing? How much did you drink? Did you say no? How many times did you say no? Are you absolutely sure it was rape?” (Dick) The protest movement really tries to use ethos and pathos to explain that women are not the problem, and they should not be blamed for being a victim of an assault because it is not their fault. It is wrong to allow women to feel as if they did something wrong, when they are already suffering from their original sexual assault attack. It is also immoral to “pretend” that assaults are not happening by dissuading women from reporting so that administration can keep their assault numbers low and their players on the field. From a logos standpoint the protest tries to show that schools are reluctant to report because their funding from the federal government or their application rates from incoming freshman could go down. The Hunting Ground outlined that very well when it said,  “A University President’s first job is to make money for the school, so why would they acknowledge sexual assault when their money is at stake?” (Dick) While the protest uses cases of administration maltreatment to evoke emotion and also to reveal the unethical actions of schools, is also shows from a logical standpoint why schools are reluctant to report and recognize that sexual assault is a problem at their school.

College campus cover-ups by administration are not worth treating a victim horribly all in the name to save a school’s “reputation” or “promising athlete.” Protests by student activists who identify with the female victims attempts to show just that; no woman should feel as if they have no sense of safety or nowhere to turn if they have been violently assaulted on their own campus. Institutions and their administrations need to start putting the assault victims first, and put college athletics on the backburner. Resources such as clear ways to report assault and 24/7 accessible assault counselors also need to be available to the student body at all colleges and universities in America.

Moving on into observing the multiple campus protests occurring across the U.S., and what seemed like a suitable representation of campus sexual assault concerning athletes, It appeared that a strong artifact example of campus sexual assault concerning athletes is the Oscar-nominated theme song from The Hunting Ground by Lady Gaga titled: “Till It Happens to you,” which was performed at the 2016 Academy Awards.

Till it happens to you, you don't know how it feels, how it feels

Till it happens to you, you won't know, it won't be real

No, it won't be real, won't know how it feels

-Lady Gaga, Till It Happens to You

Both Sofia Karasek and Annie Clark were two of the fifty-one women who joined Gaga on stage as she sang the song live at the 2016 Oscars after being introduced by Vice President of The United States Joe Biden. The song “Till it happens to you” was specifically written for Kirby Dick’s film The Hunting Ground, as Lady Gaga thought it was important to “bring to light the epidemic of sexual assault by athletes on college campuses” (Rosenburg 1). The performance by Lady Gaga and the 51 survivors of sexual assault was a moving act of protest that left the likes of actor Leonardo DeCaprio and actress Rachel McAdams in tears. During the performance, survivors took the stage with “sharpie-d” statements on their arms such as “they blamed me,” “not my fault,” and “they didn’t help.” All of these statements were subtle remarks to the colleges and universities who had failed to properly act when faced with reports of sexual assault.

Sofia Karasek, who was raped at the University of California-Berkley in 2012, was shocked to learn that her rapist (who was on the football team) had only been sent to counseling after being convicted of rape by an academic panel. Of her rape Karasek says “It was particularly disturbing because I heard from other students that this was a recurring problem that sexual assault wasn’t taken seriously. He had raped two other girls before me and yet the university was still systematically sweeping sexual assault under the rug as they have been for decades” (Rosenburg 2). At the 2016 Oscars performance Karasek also stated “I would much rather give up the Oscars performance and not have gone through everything I’ve gone through, I would much rather have not met Lady Gaga if it meant I didn’t have to experience what I have. We’re not lucky — we have survived and that’s why we were there” (Rosenburg 2). 

This protest on the night of the Oscars allowed women who were survivors of sexual assault by athletes to have a group to not only relate to, but also to identify with. In the scholarly article “Discriminant analysis of risk factors for sexual victimization among a national sample of college women”, Laura Dunn, a college freshman at University of Wisconsin in back 2004, admits to being raped by a basketball player but not reporting it because she felt she had “no where to turn.” Regarding recent campus protests, and also Lady Gaga’s performance, she says, “it’s great to have people you can relate to and people who understand you. We don’t need to be alone anymore, now we can stand together and demand for fair and equal treatment from our schools” (Koss 1).

            Arizona Public Media recently broadcast a piece titled “Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle for Justice.” This piece explored the findings of the Center for Integrity and NPR News Investigation, and revealed that still to this day, colleges almost never expel athletes who are found responsible of a sexual assault. “Reporters at NPR discovered a database of about 130 colleges and universities given federal grants because they wanted to do a better job dealing with sexual assault. But the database shows that even when men at those schools were found responsible for sexual assault, only 10 to 25 percent of them were expelled” (Arizona Public Media). The investigation also revealed that significant barriers still exist in terms of making female students safe from sexual assault. Fifteen percent of schools are actually using a higher standard of proof than what the U.S. Department of Education recommends for adjudicating sexual assaults, thus making it more difficult for victims to hold their attackers accountable. However, even in cases where there is some accountability, approximately 19 percent of institutions in the national sample reported that they do not impose orders that would require the perpetrator to avoid contact with the survivor of the assault (U.S. Department of Education).

Institutions also seem to have a long way to go in providing sexual assault services to students. Most institutions also fail to provide access to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner who can provide medical and other services to survivors of sexual assault. Only approximately 42 percent of the nation’s largest public schools and 21 percent of the largest private schools have a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. In addition, more than 30 percent of schools do not provide any sexual assault training for students. At institutions with fewer than 1,000 students, 53 percent provide no training at all! (Arizona Public Media).

Lady Gaga’s performance “Till It Happens to you” was a strong visual representation of the identity behind the protest movement of campus assault by athletes and institutional cover-ups. She helped to convey the identity of the movement by really making her song and performance bring focus to the survivors of sexual assault. By bringing them on stage with her, and having all 53 of the women stand in solidarity with one another, it brought much visibility to the ongoing issue of sexual assault at colleges and universities in America. The 53 sharpie-d statements on the women’s arms, such as “they blamed me,” was also a remarkable and brave stance against the college and university administrations that have not correctly handled sexual assault allegations when it concerns a school’s athletic players. Lady Gaga’s Oscar night performance and the 53 women who joined her on stage standing tall announcing their identity as survivors of sexual assault, gave this protest a significant amount of public attention. It shined a national spotlight on the protest movement and helped bring out of the shadows the issue of sexual assaults by student athletes and cover-ups by administration.

Although this protest is still a new and developing revolution, women all across America are standing strong and in solidarity with one another to protest assault and campus cover-ups when it concerns accusations against athletes. There is still a long way to go before real legislative change will be implemented, but brave women who decide to take a stance against their schools and assaulters are slowly catching the attention of Washington, and rapidly gaining the attentiveness from the public. With growing support and an understanding of an ethical and logical need for change, it is time for America to face the facts and gage that blaming women all in the name of money and good sports teams is not moral nor ever worth it. It is still a struggle for justice, but in time I think protesting college athletic sexual assault cover-ups will prove to be a worthwhile cause that will make campuses and universities safer and more emotionally capable of handling the occurrences of sexual assault for future generations. We may have a long way to go, and real change may not be established during my time in college, but I know we can do it.

             

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